The summarising report is being drawn, partly based on the reports from localities. However, information showed that this report will inherit the research results from the 25-year report on FDI attraction, in addition to the survey and assessment of actual FDI situation in the past five years (2012-2017).

It will consist of in-depth assessments on the prominent issues of FDI over the time, such as the development of supporting industry; the linkage between domestic and FDI firms, technology transfer, and certainly the assessments on the environmental assurance of FDI firms, as well as the attraction of FDI in high-tech and high-tech agriculture, in line with the new direction on FDI attraction set by the government after summarising the 25 years of FDI attraction.

While the in-depth analysis cannot be announced yet, the most visible number, according to the Ministry of Planning and Investment, is the current 23,737 active FDI projects in the country with total registered capital of 307.86 billion USD a very remarkable figure.

Another noteworthy point is that the FDI sector in the past year has made significant contribution to the socio-economic development of Vietnam. This sector contributed 70 percent of export turnover, 50 percent of industrial production value, 22-25 percent of total social investment capital, 15-19 percent of the state budget, etc. FDI sector has really been considered a driving force for growth of Vietnam in the past 30 years of reform.

By looking at the numbers, another reality can be seen. In the last 30 years, Vietnam has attracted over 300 billion USD of FDI but that is only the registered number. The actual disbursement, according to the Department of Foreign Investment (under the Ministry of Planning and Investment) is estimated at only 163.9 billion USD, equivalent to 53.2 percent of the total valid registered capital.

The question is that where has that amount of over 140 billion undisbursed FDI been allocated, and what are the real and virtual numbers? The 30-year FDI attraction review must clearly examine and assess this number, in order to get a real picture of FDI attraction over the past three decades.

Through several talks with reporters of Bao Dau Tu, Prof Dr Nguyen Mai stressed that many of the statistics on FDI attraction in Vietnam are virtual numbers, but they were still included in the annual statistical yearbooks and annual economic reports with no practical value.

More than once, Prof Dr Mai recommended the MPI to direct localities to thoroughly review the situation of unimplemented projects to classify into two types including projects that can be implemented and projects that cannot be implemented, so as to resolutely remove the statistics of the type-2 projects, at the same time urge and track type-1 projects to soon be carried out. The 30-year FDI attraction review is a great opportunity to eliminate virtual numbers in the statistics on accumulative registered capital, because it is not suitable for practical situation.

In fact, without the needs for specific reports, numerous virtual projects can still be named, which are the large-scale FDI projects that have not yet been implemented, such as the Nhon Trach Berjaya New City project in Dong Nai with an investment capital of two billion USD; the international university urban zone invested by Berjaya with an investment of 3.5 billion USD, and the Vietnam Financial centre project (930 million USD) in Hochiminh city, and Kobelco Steel project in Nghe An with investment of one billion USD; etc.

To remove virtual numbers and to conduct the 30-year FDI attraction review, the MPI is now asking localities to report about their FDI attraction situation in the past 30 years, as well as report on the implementation of large-scale projects using large-size land, etc. unfortunately, not many localities have done this report.

In order to prepare for the 30-year FDI attraction review and to promote FDI disbursement, thereby promoting the economic growth, the MPI has proposed the government a number of important solutions. One of them is to regularly monitor and urge FDI firms to make disbursements as committed, review the projects which have received investment licences across the country to have a solution for each type of projects, particularly the large-scale projects, projects using large-size land, including the revoke of licenses if necessary.

According to information, based on reports of localities, the MPI will organise three working teams to accelerate the disbursement of some large delayed FDI projects in the North, the Central and the South in late 2017. This is an important and essential move to speed up FDI disbursement to serve the growth target, and also to have more practical documentation to summarise 30 years of FDI attraction of Vietnam.